And now our binge has ended. Well, some of our binges, anyway. Many of us are by now finished with the third season of House of Cards, Netflix’s thoroughly addictive political drama/thriller series that arrived online last Friday. So. Now that a lot of us are done, let’s have a chat about what we just watched. How does Season 3 measure up? What lingering questions are left? Well, here’s a list. Spoilers abound.

The end of Frank and Claire?

The central narrative this season was, instead of some murder-y plot, the tension in Frank and Claire’s relationship. I’m tempted to call that tension sudden, but it wasn’t really, was it? The fundamental problems of their power dynamic were always there, it just took Frank’s ascendancy to the Oval Office to make them plain. While Claire’s interest in being a U.N. ambassador maybe seemed a bit abrupt this season, it makes sense that she would, with Frank finally ensconced in the White House, start wanting something more for herself. All the talk of her giving him his time and now wanting hers was, I’m assuming, a deliberate allusion to the Clintons, Hillary stepping forward as her husband retreated to the high-end lecture circuit. The trouble for Frank and Claire, of course, was that Frank’s rocky term in the White House was just getting started as Claire grew anxious to get her second act going. So they ruptured, the typically laser-focused duo now badly out of sync and clashing awkwardly. It was unpleasant to watch! And for a while I found myself frustrated by how much the third season focused on their relationship rather than some outside intrigue. But by the end, with that terrifying showdown in the Oval Office, I think the collapse of their marriage provided almost enough dramatic oomph to sustain the season. The question now is whether the fourth season will be about them coming back together or trying to destroy each other. I suspect it will be the former, but boy do I hope it’s the latter.

But wait, is Frank gay or what?

Maybe there’s a concrete reason for all that marital misery. With the homoerotic memories of his days at The Sentinel, the Meechum threesome, and now that charged scene with Thomas Yates, you have to wonder if House of Cards is trying to tell us something about who Frank is. Plus there was all that stuff this season about Claire not seeming satisfied in the relationship. I know a lot of that had to do with other things, ambitions and dreams and whatnot, but there were definite sexual overtones to it too, no? Especially that bedroom scene with Claire demanding that Frank take her by force. I don’t know, maybe I’m reading too much into things, or asking too much of the show, but it does kind of seem like the series might be headed toward something a little less latent and a little more overt. Maybe not! It’s possible that Frank’s murky, fluid sexuality is just an illustrative detail of his bigger, complicated self and will stay mostly unexplored. Though, why keep bringing this thing up if it’s not headed somewhere? This isn’t The Sopranos. I don’t think anything is going to be left unknown in the Pine Barrens when this show ends. This is a show that answers most of its questions, so I think we haven’t heard the last, and may be about to hear a lot more, about Frank’s sexuality.

Is Doug the real star?

I’m also excited that Mr. Stamper is back. That was a surprise, wasn’t it? When we interviewed Michael Kelly this summer, he gave no indication that he’d be back, that Doug would survive taking a big rock to the head. But survive he did, and I think he had probably the most interesting arc of anyone this season. Normally I don’t like that whole grim-relapse kind of plot, but I think House of Cards took it in some interesting, unexpected directions. I genuinely didn’t know if Doug was trying to get revenge on Frank or become a mole to get back in his good graces when he joined the Dunbar campaign, and I kind of think Doug didn’t know either. Whatever his motivations, watching him struggle and scheme was darkly entertaining, and I like how the show sort of gracefully moved him into third lead position. I guess he was already kind of there last season, but especially this season, House of Cards has begun to feel like Doug’s story, too. And it’s a pretty bleak story! When he turned that van around to get Rachel, a scene that was masterfully shot and staged, I was shocked. But I wasn’t exactly disappointed? I know that sounds terrible, and in an ideal world Rachel, excuse me, Cassie, would have walked off into the New Mexico sunset unharmed. But this isn’t an ideal world, it’s the soapy moral morass that is House of Cards, and in that morass it was strangely nice to see Doug and the show back to their old ruthlessness. Now that he’s realigned with Frank, or at least appears to be, I’m excited to see Doug maneuver the back corridors and darkened parking garages of power again. Doug, with that final brutal act, was the closest this show came to being the House of Cards of the first two seasons, when the show was less about emotional and psychological turmoil and more about good old fashioned plotting. Since it looks like he’s definitely sticking around, hopefully Doug can help get Frank back on track next year.

Should Frank lose?

The season ends after the Iowa caucuses, with Frank securing a victory but Heather Dunbar still nipping at his heels, seemingly undaunted, and boosted by a back-stabby endorsement from Jackie Sharp. I presume next season will follow Frank into the general election, where he’ll square off against the Republican candidate, hopefully one played by another theater vet like Elizabeth Marvel, who has brought such sharpness to Heather Dunbar. The question is, is the show better when Frank is trying to hold on to power or when he’s trying to get it? I’d argue it’s the latter, as evidenced by the way this season occasionally sagged, or seemed listless. The vizier, the secretly powerful Iago whispering in people’s ears, is oftentimes a more interesting character than the guy at the top. Frank as majority whip was great, with all that backroom wheeling and dealing. Same with Frank as VP. But Frank as president? It didn’t work as well. He kept bonking his head on the ceiling. So I’m wondering if having him lose the election and being booted down to the lower ranks would rejuvenate the show a little. It might not. Now that he’s got the power, taking it from him might diminish or neuter his character some. But if he loses, it opens the door for a more intriguing possibility that was briefly teased at toward the end of this season: What if Claire runs? In the scene at the harried Iowa mom’s house, there was a twinkle of an idea in Claire’s eyes when the lady said that Claire should run for president. Might that be how the show pits Frank against Claire in the epic battle royale that unites or destroys them? A what-if about Hillary running against Bill? That would certainly be intriguing! And in that scenario, I definitely think Frank should lose. President Claire Underwood. Now there’s a show.

Who's going to work for Frank now?

Now that Remy has quit, seemingly for good, and Jackie Sharp is no longer in his corner, and Claire of all people has walked out, Frank needs some new blood. Either he gives Meechum a sexy promotion and they take over the world with Doug’s help, or he assembles a new team. I don’t like that shifty Seth Grayson, and I don’t feel that the show ever quite figured out what to do with him. He could be excused and no one would miss him. But even if he stays put, Frank is still curiously understaffed. Does the president really deal with that few people? Sure he had his cabinet meetings, but mostly he was only interacting with a very small handful of people. He seemed to only have one or two Secret Service guys, even. House of Cards should still primarily focus on Frank and Claire (and Doug) next season, because that’s how the show’s framework is set up, but the supporting cast has lost some of its depth. So I hope they replenish the roster in Season 4. And I hope that we’ve not seen the last of Remy, or poor, clueless, forever thwarted Jackie. I think their plotlines sorta wrapped up at the end of this season, but Mahershala Ali and Molly Parker are such good, engaging actors that it’d be a shame not to see more of them. As the return of Doug proved, we should never count anyone out on this show unless they’re for sure dead, so maybe there’s hope that we’ll see those two star-crossed lovers again.

But was it good?

This was definitely an uneven season of House of Cards. It still featured some great performances, with Spacey just skirting the line of overdoing it, and lots of striking composition. (Seriously, some of the filming and scoring, especially in the last few episodes, was stunning—think Claire in the bathtub, or those barren New Mexico vistas.) And it was compelling enough to merit two late nights of “Oh, just one more episode” devouring. The finale episode, with Doug’s cold-blooded dispatching of Rachel and Frank and Claire’s implosion, did get the pulse racing. But mostly this season felt off-balance, owing to problems of Frank’s position and some storylines that never really led anywhere fruitful. There were stories throughout the season, ones featuring good actors doing good work, that felt curiously unnecessary, even detrimental. This should be an aerodynamic kind of show, and while I loved Kim Dickens as a dogged reporter or Jayne Atkinson’s secretary of state getting prickly with Claire, those plot lines and others were probably superfluous, in the grand scheme of the show, anyway. And I just don’t think this season got to the “wow” moments that made Seasons 1 and 2 sing, that thrilling “A-ha!” when you see the full, interconnected scope of what the writers have been weaving all along. Season 3 was lacking a trick, a nifty bit of design that could give it some real pizzazz. There are plenty of other dramas about marriage and domestic strife on TV. So I wish House of Cards would leave all that alone for the most part and get back to all the twisty, turn-y stuff. While I originally thought that it’d be best if House of Cards was only a three-season series, I now find myself eagerly awaiting the fourth. Not because Season 3 left things in such great shape, but because I think it could be glorious to watch the show finds its way again.